


Nightmares and Daydreams

by rinthegreat



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Memory Loss, Nightmares, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 08:56:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12678612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinthegreat/pseuds/rinthegreat
Summary: Shiro wakes up injured in an unfamiliar crashed ship. He has no memories of what happened after he left for the Kerberos mission, no recollection of how he ended up in the ship. And when he's rescued by people who claim to know him, claim to be his friends...well he has no memories of them either.





	Nightmares and Daydreams

**Author's Note:**

> Finally, here is my second fic for the [Shiro Big Bang](http://voltronbigbang.tumblr.com/)! Per my usual, this is a Shance fic but this one focuses mainly on Shiro. My artists for this one (in order of their art's appearance) are: [Queenie](http://queenmogar117.tumblr.com/), [Mike](http://mike-a-liscious.tumblr.com/), and [GonProHunter](http://gonprohunter.tumblr.com/). Their art is absolutely amazing, and is included in this fic! However, please **do not repost their art.** I will include links to their posts so you can reblog them once they post. Please use those instead.
> 
>  
> 
> As per uz, this was betaed by my beautiful, amazing, hard-working beta [thislittlekumquat](http://thislittlekumquat.tumblr.com/). What a champ!

Alarms are blaring when he wakes up. Shiro opens his eyes, vision blurry, and assesses his surroundings.

Red lights flash, matching the alarms. It’s loud, ringing in his ears as he forces himself upright with a groan. He gasps as a sharp pain pierces his side. His hand drops to it immediately, feeling nothing there but the swelling in his own side and _pain_ where he touches.

A broken rib then.

He forces himself up and off the floor anyway, using the surface next to him to steady himself.

He’s in a cockpit of some kind, though he doesn’t recognize the model. He’s holding the dash, which is also flashing lights, and to his right is the main screen blaring an unfamiliar symbol that must mean _emergency_. There are two chairs in here – one of which he clearly was thrown out of – but so far he appears to be alone.

Shiro takes a shaky step forward, legs wobbly from the crash – it had been a crash, right? – but otherwise uninjured. His human arm is numb and tingling, and when he reaches for the chair to help air his progress, he sees red drop from his wrist to the floor.

That’s something he’ll need to deal with later.

He continues his slow progress to the door, assessing his body with each step. He has a headache and his temple is wet, liquid dripping down the side of his cheek – a head injury. At least two ribs are broken and several more are bruised. And of course his arm was cut – deep enough that he ends up having to rip off the bottom of his shirt with his other – apparently prosthetic – hand and cut off the circulation to prevent himself from blacking out.

Shiro reaches the door and hits the button to open it with a sigh.

Out in the hallway are more flashing red lights accompanied by an orange glow on the floor, helpfully pointing him towards the exit. He checks both directions before stepping out, leaning on the door once it closes, out of breath from the short jaunt he’d just taken.

With another groan, Shiro turns and leans against the wall with his left side. It hurts, bad, but he needs to keep his right hand free in case something comes out at him.

He plays a game with himself as he walks, trying to remember how he got here. He wracks his brain, but nothing comes to him. So instead he goes over what he knows: his name is Takashi Shirogane. He trained in the Garrison to become a pilot and then was assigned to the Kerberos mission with –

He pauses, mind freezing as well. He thought he heard something.

Shiro stands there a moment, heart pounding in his ears, ears straining. Then he hears it again.

Voices.

Shiro looks around, trying to find a door, a crevice, a trash chute, _anything_. The closest door is behind him – the one he’d come out of.

Looks like he’s going to have to fight then.

He tenses, grateful for the flashing red lights for once, and holds his breath.

“I’m telling you: this is either an old beacon or a trap.”

“And _I’m_ telling you to shut up already.”

_Keith_.

Shiro recognizes the second voice immediately, his mind supplying the name. Visions of a life on Earth, a home, a brother pass through his mind. Oh thank god. Oh thank _god_. He slumps over, waiting for Keith and…whoever it is to turn the corner.

He hears them the moment they do.

“Holy quiznak!”

“Lance don’t grab my –! Shiro?”

Running footsteps.

“Shiro?”

“Shiro!”

He’s jostled, and when he raises his head he’s face to face with Keith – a sight he hadn’t seen in what felt like _years_.

“Keith,” he greets, voice rusty and weak. “Hey.”

“Shiro, what the hell – you’re injured.”

He chuckles, but that causes a wince. “Yeah…I have a few broken ribs. Probably a concussion.” He shakes his left arm. “Also had to cut off the circulation before I bled out.”

“Shit,” Keith swears.

“Language,” Shiro chastises, eyes growing heavy.

His vision swims as Keith’s mouth moves, but he can’t hear anything. Keith turns his head, and Shiro catches a glimpse of brown skin as a second person crouches down. _Who are you_ he means to ask, but he’s already blacking out.

 

* * *

 

Shiro wakes up to a hiss and a click. His momentum carries him forward at a tilt, and he falls, landing with a soft _oomph_ sound in his ear. His eyelids are heavy when he blinks, slowly working them open.

“Shiro, buddy, you there?” An unfamiliar voice asks.

Groggily, he looks around himself. Whoever’s holding him is strong enough not to buckle under his body weight, but he can’t quite see who it is yet. What he can see, eventually, are five other people standing around him.

One of them leans in closer, Shiro’s vision finally focusing. “Shiro, you with me?”

“Keith…” He breathes, hardly believing it. He straightens up with a little help from whoever was holding him, reaching for Keith. “What are…?”

Keith crushes him into a hug before he can finish that. It’s a very un-Keith-like move which leaves Shiro confused and concerned. What’s he missing? “Keith?”

They separate, and Shiro keeps one hand on Keith, dutifully ignoring his misty eyes. He finally has a chance to look around himself, and…

He has no idea where he is.

The other five faces aren’t familiar at all – two of them look more like elves with tattoos than people – and the surroundings…well they aren’t the same as the ship he’d woken up in. His eyes trace over the others, hoping to see something that’ll spark his memory. They’re all looking at him like they know him but

He doesn’t recognize any of them at all.

The guy holding him up is big, dark, human, and completely unfamiliar. There’s a lanky guy with brown skin the same shade as what he remembers from before he’d passed out. Then the two elves, both completely unfamiliar. And finally…

“Matt?” he breathes, hardly believing it. The face brings forth memories of late nights in their dorm room, excitement when they both were accepted into the Kerberos mission, travelling together.

Shiro steps forward away from Keith, but Matt just gives him a look of confusion. Too late Shiro realizes his mistake: he’s too short, too young to be Matt. The glasses are the same, but otherwise…

“Shiro are you okay?” Not-Matt asks in a distinctly feminine voice. And oh. Oh he knows who it is now.

“Katie? Katie Holt?”

Katie tilts their head. “Yeah?”

“How do you know who I am?”

Katie’s mouth drops open. Clearly, that was the wrong thing to ask. Shiro looks around at all the other faces, registering confusion, shock, and disappointment before his eyes return to Keith. “Keith, where am I?”

Keith frowns at him, opening his mouth, but he’s stopped by the elf-woman. “We need a moment outside. Stay here and rest, Shiro.” Her tone allows no room for argument, and she steers Keith away.

Shiro catches the frowns from the others as they follow Keith and the elf-woman out of the room. He sits heavily on the nearest chair, mind reeling. Keith is here. So is Katie Holt. He has no idea where here is, no idea who the other people are. But clearly, they have some idea of who he is.

They think he can’t hear them when they walk out of the room – med bay, Shiro thinks as he looks around – but they leave the door open. Despite their whispers, he can hear them clear as day. Had his ears always been this good?

“What do we do? He can’t remember anything.”

“How do we know that’s even Shiro?” He recognizes this voice as Katie.

“Pidge!” The whispered shout is followed by a series of hushing.

Keith growls, the sound familiar enough that Shiro almost feels comfortable for a moment. “Of course it’s Shiro. Who else would it be?”

“Evil Galra Shiro, obviously. Come on, Keith, I know you have brains somewhere under that mullet.” This one is the other voice from the ship. The one who helped Keith rescue him.

“Lance” – Shiro commits that name to memory – “so help me, I will beat your face until it’s the same color as your lion.”

“Boys.” He doesn’t recognize this person, but he sounds…older and male. “Calm down. Princess, how should we handle this?”

“It could be a trap…” A woman’s voice sounds.

“I told you,” Katie hisses. The person who had been holding him up agrees. “I dunno, Keith, I think Pidge might have a point here –“

“It’s _Shiro_. Trust me. I’d be able to tell if it weren’t.”

“Wait.” Lance again, Shiro thinks. “If we think it’s a trap, why don’t we take him to Black?”

Shiro has no idea what ‘black’ could be other than a color, but the suggestion silences the others for a moment. “Good idea, Lance,” the older male from before agrees. “The lions can identify their paladin’s Quintessence, so Black would know if that isn’t Shiro.”

Quintessence? What the hell is that?

Katie, however, still seems suspicious. “I still think there’s something off about this. Even if it _is_ Shiro, how do we know he’s not brainwashed?”

“We’re not going to perform experiments on him like he’s some animal!” Keith whisper shouts.

All of them shush him. “I never said that. I just think we should keep a close eye on him. That’s all.”

A pause, and then Keith again. “Fine. I agree, let’s take him to Black.”

Shiro leans back, feigning nonchalance when he hears the door open again. They don’t seem to think he was listening in, but regardless. They don’t trust him. His training from the Garrison kicks in. He needs to play nice, prove he’s not a threat.

“How are you feeling?” Keith asks, immediately approaching him. Good old Keith, always on his side, even if the evidence is stacked against him.

Shiro assesses himself, moving his extremities carefully. Nothing had seemed off when he stepped out of…the elven equivalent of a healing pod he assumes. But regardless, he’s always been a believer in ‘better safe than sorry’. “Tired and disoriented but otherwise okay.”

Keith shoots a look to the others, one that clearly reads _see? Told you so_. “We figured you were probably confused.” He reaches out grasping Shiro’s arm. “I know you’re tired, but we need to take a short detour to see Black.”

Shiro gets the distinct impression that he wouldn’t be helping himself if he asked what – or who – Black is. “Okay,” he agrees carefully, “but my legs are a little wobbly. I might need some help.”

“Right.” Keith’s expression is still too serious for Shiro, but given the situation – whatever it is – he chooses not to mention it. “Hunk, wanna help me out over here?”

The big guy, the one who helped Shiro when he fell out of the pod in the first place steps forward. Shiro commits that to memory. Now he knows the lanky one who helped save him is Lance, Katie’s been going by Pidge, and the big guy is Hunk. He just needs to get the elves’ names.

“You want a piggy back? Bridal style? Or a good old fireman carry?” Hunk asks, voice straining with the forced humor.

Shiro smiles, trying to put him at ease, but he’s afraid it’s just as strained. “I’m good just leaning on you.”

He hooks his arm around the back of Hunk’s neck, leaning most of his body weight onto him. Whatever happened to him left him a lot weaker than he thought. “Allura?” Hunk asks, voice strained. “A little help here?”

The lady elf steps forward, leaving only one person whose name Shiro doesn’t have yet, and grabs Shiro’s other arm wrapping it around his neck. At first he has no idea why Hunk asked one of the two girls – and a dainty one at that – for help, but when she takes most of his weight with ease he gets it. Wow. Elves are really strong.

They help him out of the room and down unfamiliar hallways to what looks like a hangar. Keith and the others hang back a little when they enter, but Allura and Hunk lead him to…what the hell. A giant metallic lion.

Shiro’s about to tell them to cut it out with the jokes, when the lion’s eyes _glow_ and suddenly he feels…something in his mind.

_Black_.

Feelings rush into him from somewhere outside. They’re weaker than his own thoughts, but he remembers Black now. Flying, fighting…something. Someone. The Galra.

“Oh…” He breathes out loud. He hadn’t noticed himself close his eyes or push away from Allura and Hunk, but when he opens them, he’s pressed to Black’s paw, cool metal against his human hand.

“Black recognizes him.”

Shiro turns his head, confused. Lance is standing there with his head cocked, watching both him and Black, while everyone else seems to be deferring to him.

“But their bond is weaker than before.”

“Are you sure?” Allura asks.

“Why would their bond be weaker?” Keith demands.

Lance shakes his head at both of them. “Guys, I’m not as good at telling Black’s feelings as Blue’s. That’s the best I got right now.”

_Blue_.

The word reminds him of a hut in desert and another lion. There are others. The people here…they’re paladins. Pilots of the lions that form something…Voltron?

But he still can’t really _remember_.

“It’s possible,” the older man starts, drawing their attention, “that the memory loss is affecting the bond. Shiro clearly can’t remember who we are, so naturally all the work he’d done to get closer to Black would be negated.”

Katie nods. “That makes a lot of sense, actually. Black bonded with Shiro’s Quintessence, but their bond was based on their history and mutual trust. If Shiro doesn’t _have_ that history anymore, then even though the bond is still there, it’s logical that it would be weaker.” She looks up at him. “But you knew who I was.”

Shiro looks around, deciding it’s best not to lie. “I saw pictures of you. Matt took one with us to Kerberos.”

“So you remember Kerberos.”

Shiro thinks back, but the more he tries to remember specific details, the harder his head hurts.

“Don’t push him too much,” Keith snaps, stepping forward and resting his hand on Shiro’s shoulder. “Shiro. It’s ok. The Galra just…messed with your head or something. You had a hard time remembering things after they got you the first time.” He shoots a glare at everyone else. “So this isn’t surprising.”

Wait…the first time?

“Shiro, my boy,” the older elf speaks again. “Do you remember who I am?”

He seems so friendly, like a father or an uncle – someone Shiro wishes he hadn’t forgotten. And yet… “No. I’m sorry.”

The elf’s moustache droops a little. “Not to worry!” He declares in the same cheerful voice. “I am Coran, The Gorgeous Man.”

“Shiro.” Allura steps forward. “Do you know where you are?”

He looks her up and down, then glances around at the hangar. Something this impressive should’ve stayed in his memories too, but nothing about it – aside from Black – sparks his memory at all. “No.”

She purses her lips, and he gets the feeling that he said something wrong. But…these are Keith’s friends. He shouldn’t have to lie to them. Not if Keith trusts them.

“I’m Lance.” Lance breaks the awkward silence, stepping forward. “And this is Hunk and Pidge, but I guess you kinda know her as Katie. And that’s Allura and Coran and you already know Keith, though I have to say of all of us to remember, he’s the most unfortunate.”

“Hey!”

“If I could choose I would always remember the lovely Allura.” He sweeps into a dramatic bow, eliciting a huff of irritation from the woman.

The awkward air from before finally lifts as everyone groans at Lance’s antics. Shiro gets the impression that this is a common occurrence. Rather than be irritated like the rest of them clearly are, he’s relieved. Lance’s flirting takes the uncomfortable attention off him, allows him to get a glimpse into the group’s dynamic instead.

They’re relaxed around each other. Hunk and Pidge shoot each other glances while Allura rolls her eyes. Coran seems amused, while Keith and Lance start bickering like siblings about Keith’s hairstyle.

He wonders what his role was.

“Guys,” he interrupts eventually. The look Lance gives him is incredulous. Did he not used to interrupt? “I hate to break this up, but could someone show me where we sleep? I’m pretty tired.”

“Ah, of course!” Coran exclaims good naturedly. “The healing pods of course heal the body, but the toll it takes is exhausting. A nap will do you some good.”

“I’ll show –“

“I got this,” Keith speaks over Lance, stepping forward. His voice leaves no room for argument. Shiro knows Keith can be a bit protective, but he’s not sure what he’s protecting Shiro from. Interrogation probably. “C’mon Shiro. I’ll show you your room.”

The concept of having a place of his own to sleep is interesting, especially on a ship – which Shiro thinks they’re on based on the metallic appearance. Sure enough, when they walk past windows, he sees stars outside and no land. He’s alone with Keith, so he could just ask the burning questions he has (Where are they? How did they get here? Where are they going?) but something holds him back.

“Thank you,” he murmurs instead.

Keith glances over at him. “You’re my family, Shiro. I’ll always be there for you.”

They part at Shiro’s room – after Keith helpfully shows Shiro how to work the door – and Shiro walks in. The same blank, metallic walls as were in the hallway surround him. Keith had told him this room had been his since they first arrived on the castle ship, but nothing’s displayed inside that would indicate that. No knick knacks. No pictures. Nothing.

He finds a second door, leading to the bathroom. The toilet has more buttons than he’s used to, but he figures out which is a simple flush quickly enough. Aside from that, there’s a small shower, sink, and mirror. But still nothing personal, aside from what looks like an alien version of a toothbrush.

When he finally looks up into the mirror, he’s greeted by an unfamiliar face. His hair’s grown out, far longer than he ever had it in the Garrison, but that’s not the most shocking thing. He has a shock of white hair in the front, white hair he doesn’t remember having before the Kerberos mission.

Shiro reaches out with his human hand, touching his reflection, tracing the scar gashed over his nose. It runs horizontally across his face, marring the skin. Something that large had to have been painful to get. Is that how he lost his memories? A blow to the head so powerful it left a mark?

Or maybe, Shiro thinks, raising his prosthetic to the mirror this time, it was this. He’d had two arms the last he remembered. Something happened that took his right arm away, replaced it with something dead and cold. With fingers that can’t even feel the glass when he touches it.

He’s a monster now, barely human anymore. A broken soldier who can’t even remember going to war. With a frustrated tug of his hair, Shiro leaves the bathroom and goes back to exploring his bedroom.

He checks every nook and cranny in the room, just in case. As far as he can tell, he’s the dangerous one here, but it can’t hurt. Survival is a hard instinct to toss aside.

There isn’t much left to see. Even the bed is perfectly made, as if he’d never slept in it. The worst part of the room is the window, he notes when he finally settles on the bed. He gets a view of the black nothingness of space, not a single planet in sight. No stars he recognizes – how far from Earth are they?

Back when he’d been a cadet, he’d had more romantic notions about space. He’d thought it would be fun, beautiful, relaxing in a way. He hadn’t been prepared for the reality of space. The blackness which seems to swallow their ship as they careen past the few stars he can see. Back then, he and Matt would talk about what they most looked forward to about going up to space.

 

_“I’d like to have a nice window to look out,”_ he’d said. _“So I could see the stars.”_

_“I think you’d see more blackness than you’d expect, Shiro,”_ Matt had told him.

_“Well…I have anxiety, so that would probably help.”_ He’d been half joking when he said it, banking on the silence and darkness to quell his nerves rather than amplify them.

Matt had laughed. Even now, when he can’t remember how he got where he is, he can remember Matt’s laugh. Wild and free and loud enough they’d gotten in trouble for being up past curfew.

If only he could remember how they got separated.

 

* * *

 

 

If Shiro were in charge and one of his teammates turned up without memories, he would keep a close eye on them. Partly to make sure they weren’t brainwashed or otherwise compromised but mostly out of concern for their wellbeing. So he gets it when he notices them doing it to him.

But that doesn’t mean he likes it.

Shiro barely sleeps a wink that night, having discovered more scars littering his torso and legs, and when he steps out of his door the next morning, he feels a presence ten feet to his right. He turns, and sure enough there’s a pyramid robot hovering there, watching him. He heaves a sigh and walks in the direction he’d come from the day before, hoping to run into a common area.

The good thing about being followed is that the robot cuts in front of him and leads him when he turns what must be the wrong way. He ends up in the kitchen, at least. Shiro wonders how the robot knew where to take him but dismisses the thought almost immediately. He’s on an elven spaceship with four people he doesn’t know, one he only knows from pictures, and Keith. Anything’s possible at this point.

Two of the people he least recognizes are sitting there, talking quietly over their bowls of…something. They look up when Shiro enters. The big one – Hunk, he reminds himself – looks guilty. The one who had been arguing with Keith the night before – Lance, Shiro knows – smiles though.

“Hey, Shiro!”

Lance is far too chipper for what feels like the earliest of mornings, even though Shiro’s internal clock tells him he’d lay in bed staring at his ceiling long past when his body urged him to wake up. Shiro grunts, wondering if they have coffee in space. “Morning.”

“I saved you some leftovers from last night,” Hunk motions with his spoon towards what must be the fridge. “Unless you want goop.”

He isn’t sure what goop is, but he’s also not sure he wants to know. If it’s anything like the mush from the Garrison cafeteria, then he definitely doesn’t want it.

“It’s the green stuff we’re eating,” Lance supplies helpfully, as if he read Shiro’s mind.

Shiro stares hard at Lance, remembering how the team had deferred to him during the issue with Black the day before. Is it possible for people out here to read minds? Is Lance even human? There are at least two aliens here. Maybe Lance and Hunk are aliens too.

Apparently staring is the wrong thing to do, because Lance flushes a bright red and looks down at his bowl. He swirls his spoon around a few times while Hunk looks between the two of them, filling the room with an awkward silence broken by the occasional clank.

“I’ll have the leftovers,” he decides, turning his attention back to Hunk.

Hunk casts one last look at Lance before turning resolutely to Shiro. “Sure man. It’s the only box in the space-fridge.”

“Do I have to heat it or…?”

Hunk grimaces. “Actually, you know what, I’ll take care of it. We don’t need anyone else nearly burning down the castle.”

Lance stands up with a clatter. “I’ll be in the hangar if you need me.” His voice is monotonous, nearly robotic. Shiro’s positive he missed something.

Hunk, as it turns out, is an amazing chef. Shiro can’t remember the last time he ate something this good. (Not that he can remember much anyway.) He tells Hunk as much, and even though he’s sure Hunk’s heard it before, he blushes and shifts his weight. “Thanks, Shiro.”

Hunk leads him down to the training deck, telling him they tend to train and do team building activities whenever they have free time away from battling the Galra. It’s nice, talking with Hunk. He has a way about him that’s calming, grounding. He’s patient with Shiro, explaining that the Galra are different aliens than Alteans – which is the name for the elf aliens, apparently – and have been slowly taking over the universe for ten thousand years. They’ve been fighting the Galra using Voltron. The five humans – answering his question about Lance and Hunk – are paladins of the lions that form Voltron, and Shiro had disappeared at the end of one of their battles. He gets more excited and less uncomfortable as he talks, hands gestures growing larger and larger.

For a moment, Shiro thinks they’ll go back to treating him the way they did before – whatever that was. Then they reach the training deck.

Allura appears to be the one in charge, despite her young appearance. (Though, Shiro notes, all of them except Coran seem to be pretty young, so that shouldn’t be a factor in choosing a leader.) “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” she tells him when he starts to stretch.

“Why not?” He asks, harsher than he’d meant. Hunk had parted ways with him once they’d come inside, joining Lance and Katie where they were stretching. Why would Hunk have brought him to the training deck if they’re not even going to let him train?

“Well, for one thing, do you even know how to use your arm?”

He looks down at his right arm, his dead prosthetic. “It’s an arm.”

Allura sighs. “It’s more than that. If you can’t activate or deactivate it at will, then I don’t think you should be training where you could hurt your teammates by accident.” _Or on purpose_ , her eyes add.

Shiro doesn’t put up a fuss, at least not openly. He walks out, exchanging a glance with Keith as he does. In all his time knowing Keith, he’s never seen that expression on his face. Shiro doesn’t know what it means.

He sits up in a booth with Coran to watch the session below. The group below are tasked with fighting off Allura and a swarm of robots that appear from nowhere. Coran provides commentary, pointing out things Shiro would’ve noticed had he any memories. “Yes, see that there? Keith and Pidge have been working on their teamwork. Quite unorthodox style, you know.” The two smallest members of the team vault over each other, tag-teaming one of the robots. It’s reckless, something he’d normally call Keith out on, but every time Keith opens himself to an attack, Katie steps in and takes out the robot, and vice versa.

“Ah, Hunk finally managed to control that form of his Bayard. Took several months for him to master that.” What a ‘bayard’ is, Shiro has no idea. Based on Coran’s comment, he assumes it’s the handle thing Hunk’s holding. It transforms from a handle to a large single-barreled gun to an even larger multi-barreled gun. Trying to make sense of the whole thing just makes Shiro’s head spin, bringing back his headache, so instead he focuses on Coran’s next comment.

“Did you see that? Lance has extended his range significantly since you’ve left. His new sniper is very impressive.” Lance has a long blue sniper which he uses to take out robots one by one, hitting on the first shot most of the time, second shot occasionally. Really, it’s impressive.

Shiro notices that Keith’s knife is red, the handle of it similar to the handle Hunk had been holding. Pidge’s strange grappling weapon is green, but also sports a similar appearance. Those must be the ‘bayards’, he decides. Color coded weapons that somehow magically change shape. This whole universe is confusing.

Coran keeps talking, even though Shiro hasn’t responded once. He’s talking more to himself than to Shiro. But it’s nice, takes his mind off the fact that he’s not down there. Because he can’t see where he would fit. Who he had fought alongside. What his skill was.

Unfortunately, he gets wrapped up in his thoughts enough that he misses something. He startles when Coran repeats his name for what must be at least the third time.

“Sorry.” He shakes Coran’s hand off his shoulder. “What did you say?”

Coran frowns at him, ignoring the obvious sounds of battle still coming from below. “Shiro, I know that you may not remember me, but I do have a special degree in Xenopsychology. Your species wasn’t yet discovered, of course, so I was not trained in humans, but…” He trails off as Shiro rubs his temples. He hasn’t done much all day, but suddenly he’s exhausted. “What I mean to say is,” the hand comes back to his shoulder, “I’m here if you need to talk.”

 

* * *

 

 

Time marches forward, ever relentless, and Shiro falls into the pattern of the castle-ship. He’s watched like a hawk during the day under the pretense of wanting to keep him part of the team. They never allow him to train with them, though. He can see it in their eyes; they don’t trust him. He chops his hair off, trying to force himself to turn back into who he was before, but it doesn’t work.

He still doesn’t have his memories back.

He likes it better at night, when he doesn’t feel like an animal at the zoo. Despite Black’s acceptance of him, they still won’t let him out of their sights. He knows Katie has cameras on him. Even Keith is more distant than before, not seeking him out after showing him his room when he’d first woken up.

The problem with nighttime is the nightmares. They come the first night and never leave, making every time he closes his eyes painful beyond belief. They twist, indecipherable from one scene to the next, and he can’t remember any details as soon as he wakes up. The images slip through his fingers the way sand would slip through the cracks.

Shiro wakes up, hyperventilating, every time.

The nightmares are his own problem, not the rest of the team’s. He barely knows Lance and Hunk, Keith has his own issues, Katie is too focused on finding their family, and Allura and Coran lost their entire planet to the war with the Galra – a fact he learns just by picking up on context clues. So he keeps his dreams to himself. They’re supposed to be a team, but the dead of night has a strange aura around it, deterring him from bonding with the other paladins.

Voltron needs a strong leader, not someone broken like him.

(Because he is broken, and he knows it.)

Tonight he sneaks into the training deck with the plan to train until he’s too tired to move. He takes a staff, like the one Allura uses while they battle, and fights the gladiator with it. It’s hard; sometimes he’ll lose himself to the hint of a memory and drop the staff, only to end up tossed against the wall. He lies there, staring at the blank ceiling, trying to get the thread back, but all it results in is a sharp pang against his skull and his vision swimming.

Mostly, though, he’s not very good. He doesn’t have a clear gage on how to maneuver his prosthetic, and he swings it around almost recklessly. It’s stronger than he expects – he can hold the staff with it single handedly, but it’s also completely foreign and numb. He discovers – after being tossed aside because he misjudged the strength he needed to swing with, nearly tearing his shoulder out of its socket – that if he focuses hard enough on his arm, he can make it _glow_. His hand turns purple and melts the staff still gripped in his hand. Shiro’s eyes widen as the metal deforms, the staff falling out of his fist in two pieces. He jumps, biting his lip to repress a shout when one of them hits his calf, burning him.

His prosthetic is _hot_. _Do you even know how to use your arm?_ The question comes back to him. This must’ve been what Allura meant. His hand is his weapon. Shiro stares at it, mentally willing it to cool off. Instantly, the purple is gone. Hesitantly, he touches it with his other hand. It’s cold again, as if no time is needed to cool it off. He focuses, making it glow and doesn’t need to bring his hand more than a few inches away to feel the heat. Hot and cold, hot and cold. Shiro sits there turning it on and off until his eyes cross. For a moment, Shiro’s lazy enough that he considers sleeping where he is right now. Just…falling asleep on the hard floor and staying like that.

But he’s old enough and scarred enough that he can’t lie comfortably on a hard surface for long. Not anymore.

With a groan, he sits up. Too fast. Stars dance before his eyes and colors start to fade to white. He has to press his palms against his eyes and count his breaths to keep himself from vomiting or passing out.

Vertigo avoided, Shiro finally gets up and stumbles to his room.

He’s beaten, likely bruised, and exhausted. Maybe this time he can actually get some sleep. What training has always been good for is exhausting him to the point where he can close his eyes, at least for a little bit. He makes his way from the training deck back to his room, leaning against the wall for support.

He practically falls through his own door when he gets there, counting the steps – one, two, three, four, _there_ – before allowing his body to tilt forward. There’s the fear, the same one as every other night, where he worries if he remembers wrong. But then he hits his mattress.

Before, back in the Garrison, he’d thought it was disgusting to even _look_ at his bed without first taking a shower. Especially if the word “workout” had been uttered near him that day. He’d been meticulous, making his bed and folding his sheets into military perfection every morning. Pressing his uniform into perfect lines every evening.

Now, his room may be as clean as it was before, but that’s because he doesn’t have any belongings. He makes his bed in the morning out of habit, but he no longer feels the need to iron his clothes. And he certainly doesn’t have the same fear about sleeping in his own sweat. It’s his sweat, one of the few reminders that he’s still human, so there’s no harm.

The mattress isn’t as soft as he’d like, but it’s about as soft as the ones he remembers from the Garrison. Softer than the one he’d slept on during the Kerberos mission. Better than the hard ground of the training room. And yet…

He still can’t sleep.

Shiro groans, drawing his hands down his face. He’d worked himself to exhaustion. He thought he could sleep tonight. He’s gone so long with so little sleep, he can almost _taste_ the tears already pricking behind his eyelids. All he wants is to sleep. To be useful for the team.

But he can’t.

Fed up with hearing the clock tick, Shiro finally pushes himself off the bed. He’d rather wander the hallways, unable to sleep, than be stuck here staring at the ceiling. At least the hallway would offer a change of scenery.

Shiro walks out of his room and down the hall, making his way down his now-usual path. The hallway is boring, as he expected it would be. No one is awake, and he’s not sure what time it is aside from the space between _very late_ and _very early_.

So he starts opening doors.

Most lead to empty rooms, just as interesting as the hallway itself. He opens them one at a time, walks around inside, then comes out. It’s repetitive and mind numbing, but it’s not enough to put him to sleep.

He’s not sure what he expects; not even a grueling solo-training session with the gladiator was enough to put him to sleep tonight.

The next door he opens leads to a semi-spherical room, walls replaced with windows. He can see the stars outside, drifting past them like clouds on Earth. Slowly, Shiro closes the door behind him.

A figure startles, and only then does Shiro realize he’s not alone in the room.

“Oh.” It’s Lance. Shiro walks in just as the paladin gets up. “Sorry. I was just…on my way out. Yeah.”

As Shiro gets closer, Lance doesn’t make eye contact, his fingers playing at the hem of his shirt. Shiro frowns. “Were you really?”

“…No.”

“Then stay here. I don’t mind.”

Lance twitches but doesn’t move. “Are you sure?”

Shiro takes a seat on the couch where Lance had been sitting before. “Sit down, Lance.”

Lance’s eyes dart to the door, and Shiro wonders if he was being too firm. If his presence scares Lance in some way. He’s relieved when Lance sighs and takes the seat next to him, even if it is just out of reach. Shiro isn’t quite ready to be alone yet.

“So…” Lance breaks the silence after a few moments. He can’t seem to handle the quiet for too long. “Come here often?”

Despite himself, Shiro’s lips crack a smile. “Really?”

“I dunno. Seemed awkward.”

“You don’t have to fill the silence, you know.”

That’s clearly the wrong thing to say. Out of the corner of his eye, Shiro catches the set of Lance’s jaw, the downward curve to his lips, and he regrets his words immediately. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean –“

“It’s fine,” Lance cuts him off coldly. He sighs again and drags his fingers through his hair. “What…uh…can’t sleep, I take it?”

Shiro thinks back to the nightmares he’d just woken from – the sensation of needles in his arm too real for comfort. “Something like that.” He looks over at Lance, watching the starlight outside illuminate his face. “What about you?”

Lance’s shoulders roll up to his ears in a shrug. “Guess I can’t really sleep either.”

The conversation drops off. Shiro knows better than to ask Lance why he can’t sleep. He’s not equipped for the answer – hell, he barely knows Lance – and even if he were, that would just leave him open for interrogation too.

But the silence between them is suffocating, and Shiro _had_ forced Lance to stay after all. “I didn’t know this room was here,” he says conversely instead.

“Really? I guess that makes sense.”

“Do _you_ come here often?” He parrots Lance’s words from earlier back at him, earning a small smile in return.

“Yeah, I guess I kinda do.” Lance points at the stars in the distance, moving slowly as they pass. “Those ones look like Orion’s Belt.”

Shiro follows the fingers to the three stars grouped somewhat together. “Any three stars in a line look like Orion’s Belt.”

Lance actually laughs at that. “I guess that’s true. Probably just homesick or something.”

Shiro’s stomach pangs. “I didn’t –“

“I know you didn’t. That’s why I laughed.” Lance turns and looks at him fully. “Relax, Shiro. I’m not mad at you.”

“How were you able to talk to Black?” he asks after a few moments of silence. He doesn’t remember much, but from what he could gather from the black lion, he should be the only paladin able to activate it.

Lance cocks his head to the side, thinking. “I’m not really sure I guess.” He taps his chin. “I think maybe it’s because I was the first of us to find my lion, but I can kinda hear all of them now. Some stronger than others. Blue obviously the most, but I usually know what’s going on with Red too, and then Yellow and Green sometimes reach out. Black is the rarest. I’m not sure she’d ever turn on for anyone but you again,” Lance finishes with a grin. “It’s pretty cool, I know.”

The stars cast glowing lights on Lance’s skin as they pass, painting his cheek almost lilac. For the first time since coming back to the ship, Shiro doesn’t feel out of place. Doesn’t feel like he’s inhabiting a body that doesn’t belong here – playing a role that was never meant for him.

 “Lance…” He starts, not quite knowing where he’s going with it. He stops himself before he leans in, alarms going off in his head. This is wrong. He can’t…he doesn’t even know Lance. Can’t even remember him as another pilot – paladin – of Voltron. So instead he clears his throat and sits back, ignoring the color high in Lance’s cheeks. “What else do you see?”

Lance blinks a few times, confusion painting his features. He nods and looks back out the window. “That one looks like a dolphin, kinda.” He traces the constellation with his finger.

Shiro follows his gaze but can’t see it at all. “No mermaids?”

“Nah…though there is a smiley face over there.”

Shiro chuckles as Lance continues to point out different constellations to him. He doesn’t realize that he’d moved closer until Lance’s voice drifts off, his head dropping to Shiro’s shoulder. Shiro turns to tell Lance that he should get up, but instead he’s met with a face full of hair. He’s wearing the same shampoo Shiro found in his bathroom, but something about how it smells on Lance is so much nicer than on his own.

His hair is softer than Shiro would’ve thought too. His head drops forward until his nose is pressed into Lance’s hair, and he sincerely hopes Lance isn’t awake for this. Or that anyone walks in on this.

With the glow of the starlight and Lance’s hair as a pillow, Shiro almost starts to fall asleep. He at least reaches a half-asleep state, where everything makes sense but nothing matters. He’s comfortable here like this, at least for some time, until Lance shifts his weight and Shiro feels the crick in his neck.

He sits up with a groan, kneading his fingers into his muscle to try and calm it down.

“Wh- oh.” Lance sits up, taking his warmth and softness with him. “Sorry about that.” He leans back and stretches with a yawn, shirt riding up enough to expose his tan stomach.

Shiro swallows hard and looks away.

“I think I’m gonna head to bed,” Lance informs him, standing up. “If I can fall asleep on you then I definitely should be able to sleep on a real mattress.”

Shiro resists the urge to call him back as Lance waves a goodbye.

The room is colder without Lance, the stars dimmer. Shiro shivers as the shadows close in on him. They’d been held at bay when Lance was here, shining in his own right, but with him gone they bear down on him, promising further nightmares should he fall asleep.

  


* * *

 

Shiro doesn’t get alone time with Keith the first few days for some reason. He’s alone in his room, doing pushups and not wanting to deal with the floating robot, when he hears a knock. “Keith,” he greets as soon as he’s peeled himself off the floor and slid the door open.

“Hey. Can we talk?” Keith steps inside, letting the door slide shut behind him. He’s messing with his gloves, picking at a loose string at the wrist.

Shiro shrugs, tossing his towel over his shoulder. “Yeah, what’s up?”

“Nothing.” Keith sits on the side of Shiro’s bed, feigning nonchalance. The tense set of his shoulders gives him away. “Just haven’t talked to you in a while.”

“Allura keeping you from me or something?” He half jokes. The crooked smile Keith responds with is enough for Shiro to see just how close he hit the mark. “Oh.” He takes a seat next to Keith. “I see.”

“We’re – she’s worried you’re brainwashed,” Keith grits out, never one to like heart-to-heart talks.

“You think I might be too?”

Keith flinches. “Shiro, you’re like a brother to me, you know that.” Shiro grunts in agreement. “But Allura has a point. The distress beacon and the ship crash where you were the only survivor?” Oh, is that what had happened? “It was too convenient of timing. Almost as if they _knew_ we were going to be there at that time and wanted us to find you.”

“So what now?”

“What do you mean what now?”

“Are you going to interrogate me? Continue avoiding me? Have Pidge report my every move to you?”

Keith frowns. “It’s not like that.”

“Really,” Shiro deadpans. He can’t sleep well because of the nightmares. The team he can’t remember doesn’t trust him. And the only person he can remember – the person he cares more about than even himself – has been avoiding him. So yeah, he’s a bit upset. “Then why is my only brother avoiding me?”

“I’m not avoiding you.”

“And I have two arms.”

Keith growls, tugging at his hair. He’s always been quick to anger and slow to cool down. “I don’t want something to go wrong because I reacted without thinking!” He shouts. “I want to trust you, but we need to be cautious. I’m _trying_ to be the leader you wanted me to be.”

Whatever he’s talking about, Shiro either doesn’t understand or doesn’t remember. He’s not sure which. “Then come back and talk to me when you know what you want,” he tells Keith coolly. Brothers or not, he’s pissed that the one person who _should_ trust him doesn’t.

Keith grits his teeth. “Fine,” he agrees. He walks to the door but stops and turns at the last moment. “I love you, Shiro. We’ll figure out what’s wrong.”

Shiro nods to him, jaw set, and Keith leaves, door sliding shut behind him.

 

* * *

 

 

History repeats itself that night. Shiro can’t manage to fall asleep again, not without the nightmares starting all over again. He skips the training room this time, heading straight for the observation deck he’d sat in with Lance the night before.

So he’s not all that surprised to find Lance there again.

“Oh,” Lance turns to him as he walks in, eyes widening. “Shiro.”

“Can’t sleep?”

Lance shakes his head. “You?”

“No.” Shiro drops down onto the seat next to Lance, close enough to feel the paladin’s warmth radiating off of him. He’s comfortable here, more than he has any right to be with a person he can’t even remember. “What stars are you tracing tonight?”

“Hmm…” Lance’s teeth worry at his lower lip as he thinks. “I think I see Cassiopeia over there.” He points at a clump of stars that vaguely resemble a W shape.

“Any Orion’s Belts?”

Lance laughs. “Tons.”

They drop off into silence, watching the stars together. At least until Lance nods off, head dropping to Shiro’s shoulder. It’s his sign to leave again, but he makes sure to lay Lance on the couch, draping the paladin’s jacket over him before he walks off.

And again the next night. And the night after. And the night after that.

In fact, Shiro may not be able to sleep well – the nightmares come no matter what he does – but the routine is restful and calming. It’s far better than the distant looks he gets from Keith whenever the two of them are in a room together. Better than the calculating glances from Pidge. Better than the guilt he feels when he looks at Allura or Hunk or Coran, because he can’t remember them at all. Not that he can remember Lance either.

But being around Lance is…different. Lance doesn’t treat him like an invalid, like he’s broken (even though he is). Lance just spends time with him, pointing out star clusters and falling into a comfortable silence. It’s different than the way the paladin acts around the others. He’s not as boisterous, as excitable. Instead he’s a steady presence, laughing softer than Shiro expects at the lame jokes that drop from Shiro’s lips sometimes.

It grounds him.

Every other moment, he’s distracted, unsure of his own place. His mind is slipping, every day. He trains by himself, but sometimes the gladiators…change. Turn into something different. Sometimes their eyes glow yellow, their hands bathed in a black cloud rather than gripping a staff. Sometimes they’re an enemy from the gladiator arena, a prisoner he’d known before and has to kill today.

He’s losing it, honestly.

But here? Late at night in the observation deck with Lance? He feels almost normal, almost human. And he knows exactly what’s happening, too. Shiro’s all too aware of the fact that he’s more conscious of Lance’s movements even than his own. That he turns to Lance the way a flower turns towards the sun. He knows that he absolutely shouldn’t take this any further because he’s not…him. Not the him Lance knows.

And what if he gets his memories back, and something changes? He couldn’t do that to Lance. He couldn’t do that to himself.

So instead he grants himself small indulgences. Shiro drapes his arm around Lance when the paladin leans into him. He ruffles his hair, just so he can feel how soft it is. He sits closer on nights like this, pressing their thighs together on purpose so he can hear Lance stutter mid speech.

“Don’t stop there,” Shiro says lightly, as if he hadn’t intentionally distracted Lance from his story. “What happened next?”

Lance’s face is flushed, turned almost purple by the light from outside. He swallows but eventually finishes the story. “I crashed the simulator,” he says matter-of-factly.

It’s not that funny. Really, it isn’t. But Shiro hasn’t had more than four hours of sleep in the same number of days, and this time alone with Lance is just about the favorite part of his time. So he laughs, leaning forward and pressing his nose into Lance’s hair. It’s soft, something Shiro knows well already, but it’s different when the hair is against his face instead of his hand. He inhales deeply, taking in the distinct scent of Lance. He smells so good, Shiro can’t help but drop his lips to Lance’s scalp, pressing a soft kiss there.

“Uh, Shiro?” Lance asks, voice shaky.

Immediately, Shiro shakes himself out of his thoughts. Lance is a living, breathing human. Shiro has no right to just…and he’d been…oh god. “Sorry,” he exhales, sitting back straight. His arm is still around Lance’s shoulder. He should really move that.

“No, it’s…it’s fine.” He catches a glimpse of Lance’s face, deeper red than before. But he doesn’t look upset, quite the opposite. The corners of his lips are turned up. Shiro pulls Lance closer against his side, keeping his arm firmly around him. But he doesn’t try it again. Instead he watches Lance watch the stars until Lance’s eyes droop, his head dropping to Shiro’s chest.

Shiro can’t pinpoint the moment he falls asleep, nor the moment he starts dreaming, but he knows the moment he realizes he’s dreaming, because he’s watching himself. He’s completely invisible to his dream self, invisible to everyone around him, so instead he gets to watch himself from an outside view, unable to stop what’s happening.

His dream self is fighting a creature he doesn’t recognize, but they’re both dressed in the same clothes. Clothes that Shiro’s subconscious tells him indicates they’re prisoners. He vaguely recognizes the alien’s face, their clothes, the look of fear in their eyes. There’s a collar strapped around his dream-self’s neck, shocking him every time he deals a weak blow. Even worse, he watches the same punishment taken out on the other prisoner.

Shiro can’t touch them. He moves to the alien despite knowing this is only a dream, and tries to tug the collar off, but his hand pushes through its neck, unseen and unfelt.

So instead he’s forced to watch as his dream self swings wide, missing the prisoner by several inches. The alien drops to the ground, seizing, when the collar activates. He stares in horror as the prisoner twitches, eyes rolling back in their head, foam coming from their mouth.

Dream Shiro stabs him.

He stares at his dream self in shock, looking at the horror play across his reflection as dream him realizes what he’d just done.

The stands around the arena erupt with noise, cheering echoing around the area. Shiro feels sick watching it, even incorporeal as he is. He watches himself keel over, vomiting. Sees himself get dragged away.

Hears the stadium chanting “Champion”.

The scene fades to black, a sudden switch, and he’s jerked upright, no longer separate from his dream self.

Shiro calls out, tries to make some sort of noise, but a gag is shoved in his mouth and a cloth is pulled tight over his eyes, blacking out his vision again. Instead he feels, he smells. He turns himself into dead weight, heels catching on the bumps on the ground as whoever it is drags him by his armpits. Every now and then he flails, trying to throw them off, but it doesn’t do much more than cause their claws to bite into the soft skin under his arm.

He can’t track where they’re going – having only been in the prison and the arena – so there’s no map to go on. Instead he coasts along for the ride, trying to identify sounds and smells. Nothing.

They stop suddenly, jostling Shiro, and the bag is suddenly torn off his face. He blinks at the rush of light – the room isn’t bright, but it’s bright enough to throw him off – and looks around. The room is filled with tubes, glowing green.

He’s jostled again before once again being dragged. Shiro manages to catch a glimpse of his captors. They’re not guards like he thought. Instead, two druids are dragging him backwards across the floor of this – for lack of better word – experimentation room.

Shiro glances around, trying to find a way out, weapons, anything he can use in his favor. Instead all he sees is his reflection in all of the green tubes. The druids stop, dropping him effortlessly to the ground with a thud. His arms are numb but unbound, not what he’d expected but just as useless since he can’t move them at all.

“Champion.”

Shiro’s skin crawls as he looks up, seeing a familiar face to match the familiar voice gazing down at him. The witch.

She cackles, hand grabbing him by his face as she shoves him up and back, weightless. He flails as much as he can, but it’s in vain. His hand smacks against something, but by the time he realizes what it is, it’s too late. Green goop surrounds him, choking him and blocking his vision.

The last thing he hears before the tube closes is her laughter.

Shiro jerks awake with a shout, bolting upright. It takes him a moment to register his surroundings. He’s in a hallway, completely black except where his activated hand casts it in a purple glow. He looks around, moving his hand to and fro, trying to identify where he is, but to no avail.

His heart pounds in his ears, and he focuses on his breathing, trying to bring it back in control. Shiro slams his eyes shut, turning inward on himself.

What’s the last thing he remembers?

_“Champion.”_

His eyes snap open. The witch’s cackles, echoing around the walls.

Breathe. Breathe. In and out. That was just a dream. Where is he _now_?

In.

Dark hallway. Shiro places his human hand on the wall and holds out his Galra hand in front of himself, illuminating what little he can.

Out.

He nearly stumbles over the body of the alien he’d killed in the arena.

Shiro jolts back three feet. His heart hammers louder than ever, so loud anyone in the vicinity could hear it if they tried.

A closer look reveals nothing but empty space.

Calm down, calm down. Focus.

Breathe in.

The body’s still gone, hallway empty.

Out.

He moves forward again.

In.

“Shiro?”

He yelps. Shiro leaps and spins. A flash of white. He swings his arm wide. It smashes into the wall instead, ricocheting off and smacking into his chest. Shiro collapses.

“Shiro?” He hears his name again, more concerned this time.

His breath is coming out in wheezes as he hyperventilates, not helped by the punch to his own chest. He stares at the ground, the grey swimming as his vision focuses and unfocuses before he regains control.

“Shiro, are you alright?”

Finally, Shiro manages to look up. Allura’s kneeling in front of him, holding a light in her hand, eyes wide.

“Princess,” he rasps. His chest is still tight – he’s lucky he hadn’t sliced himself open rather than just winding himself.

A glance around at the hallway reveals Altean design. He’s in the castle, still. Shiro sighs in relief, shoulders dropping heavily. For a moment there he’d thought –

But it doesn’t matter. He’s in the castle. On the ship. Safe and alive.

Allura, however, doesn’t seem convinced. “What are you doing down here?”

“I, uh, don’t really know. I sleepwalked here,” he admits. Internally, Shiro winces. One of these days he needs to learn to think faster on his feet.

Rather than seem more concerned or ask more questions, Allura nods, face unreadable as she stands. “We’re in the cargo bays,” she explains, holding a hand for him. Gratefully, he takes it and lets her hoist him up.

Confusion, then embarrassment. “I didn’t mean to wake you, princess.”

“I didn’t hear you.”

Shiro whips his head to her, but all he can see is white hair. “Why were you down here then?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“So you decided to go for a walk in the cargo bays?”

She walks away, shoes clicking on the ground. He nearly has to run to catch up to her. “I was checking the entire ship. This was my last stop.” She has a tone that doesn’t invite argument or further questions.

Shiro follows her back through the halls. She turns off her own light, placing it in a box once they enter the area that’s already lit. Allura continues walking with purpose directly back to her quarters, not pausing when they reach the intersection where their paths diverge. Shiro calls out, not ready to go back yet. Not wanting this – whatever this is – to end. Not just yet.

“Princess, wait.”

She stops.

“Do –“

“I won’t mention this to anyone, Shiro,” Allura interrupts. Her voice comes out softer than he’d expected, given that she’d all but ignored him since he’d asked her why she was in the hall.

“Thank you.”

Shiro watches Allura as she walks away, feeling far calmer than he had before. He takes another deep breath, chest rising and falling with less pain than before, and goes back to his room.

 

* * *

 

 

Lance avoids meeting his eyes at breakfast the next day. It’s a stark contrast to the way Allura won’t stop watching him. He doesn’t think he’d notice if it weren’t for the fact that he _knows_ he fell asleep on Lance the night before, watching the stars fly past.

Shiro would be lying if he said he doesn’t feel awkward.

He hovers on the outskirts of the team, the same as before, trying to ignore the distinct feeling of being watched. Practically being stalked. Coran and Allura both continue to nip the idea of training with everyone else in the bud, telling him that it’s best he rest and recuperate. Keith and Allura exchange a significant glance at that, one that tells Shiro there’s more to it than that.

It’s infuriating, not being able to do anything. Not knowing how. He can’t train with the team, isn’t allowed to train without. He isn’t able to provide any real help, but he also can’t be on his own for too long without wanting to rip out his own hair.

And he’s seriously _sick_ of being watched.

Which is why he disappears just after their training session, before Pidge can send her robot after him. He heads down the halls to the observation deck he’s come to think of as his only real home. In a way, it cures his restlessness, sitting there. It seems counter-intuitive, but there’s something relaxing about watching the stars move. About tracing constellations just to watch them disappear.

Shiro nearly jumps when he hears the door open. He turns his head and makes eye contact with Lance. Lance is standing still, in the way of the door being able to shut, looking like a deer in the headlights. He looks one step away from running, frozen in place by Shiro’s gaze.

He thinks he hears the sound of Pidge’s robot in the hall, so Shiro gestures to Lance to come inside. Luckily, he does, and the door closes before the robot can find them.

Lance hovers awkwardly next to the door until Shiro’s forced to break the silence. “You don’t have to just stand there.”

Rather than lightening the mood, Lance winces. “Sorry,” he says, walking over.

“It’s…” Shiro trails off, feeling bad about it.

They sit together in an awkward silence. Shiro wants to slam his head against the glass. “Listen, about last night –“

“It’s fine,” Lance cuts him off. A single glance over, to Lance staring out the window into the passing says it’s not actually fine.

“Lance,” Shiro rests his hand on Lance’s shoulder, “I’m sorry I left without saying anything.”

“Nothing to be sorry about.”

Something about Lance makes him want to be honest. Makes him want to bare his soul. Makes him open his mouth and say: “I sleepwalked.”

“What?”

“I woke up in the hallway.”

Lance doesn’t seem any less confused by that.

“I fell asleep here and woke up in the hallway. I didn’t leave you here intentionally.” He doesn’t have to explain any further. Doesn’t have to tell Lance about how he’d almost hit Allura, how he’d stayed up the rest of the night afraid that he could’ve woken up to find Lance dead next to him.

“Oh.” The beginnings of a smile creep up Lance’s lips. “Okay.”

Shiro’s simple admission seems to have thawed some of the ice around his edges. Lance scoots a little closer to him, his shoulders drop from where they’d been stiff. The entire atmosphere around them lightens up.

Everyone else is walking on egg shells around him, but Lance seems happy just to be near him. “Tell me about some of the things I don’t remember,” Shiro requests.

Lance beams and starts talking.

 

* * *

 

 

Like the dream before, Shiro can’t remember when he fell asleep. Can’t remember how the dream started. All he knows is he’s in it now, and this time is worse than before. He’s with the witch again, like the dream that ended with him in the hallway. And just like last time, he knows he’s in a dream.

Shiro’s no longer outside himself, watching himself kill someone. He’s in his own body, and the witch is looking right at him. He doesn’t want to risk it, doesn’t want to wake up in the hallway again. This is his dream, and he’s in control.

He rushes her this time, determined to finally put an end to this. The witch stands there, completely frozen, as if shocked that he would dare attack. He raises his arm, activating it, and brings it down in a sharp slice.

A clang of metal meeting metal sounds, and Shiro blinks. His hand, rather than ending the witch’s life, is stopped by Keith’s blade. The look on Keith’s face is barely disguised horror, and feeling rushes back into Shiro.

“Get a hold of yourself!”

He looks up to where the witch had been standing, and instead meets Pidge’s eyes, wide in horror.

Shiro jumps back immediately, deactivating his arm. They were supposed to have been training. They probably were before Shiro lost himself.

The entire room is quiet around him as he looks around, breathing harder than he should be considering how little physical effort they’ve exerted. Keith stays standing protectively in front of Pidge. Allura and Coran are at the entrance, seeming uncertain. Shiro looks over to the left and sees Hunk holding his Bayard half-aimed at him. His heart pounds when he looks over to the right. Lance is completely frozen, Bayard not even activated. For once, he appears completely speechless. Shit.

“Sorry. I –“ he can’t think of an excuse. So instead he rushes past them and disappears out the door before they can stop him.

Shiro heads straight to the showers, trying to calm himself down. It’s hard when he’s practically sprinting. He turns the shower on scalding hot when he gets there, flinching as it hits his skin but forcing himself to put up with it.

The nightmares have been getting worse, but this is the first time he’d actually lost sense of reality. He knows that it’s most likely the sleep deprivation that caused it. He hasn’t been sleeping well, because of the nightmares. Just his luck that, by staying awake, they come anyway.

He’d almost hurt Pidge.

The rest of the team, even Allura and Coran, had looked ready to do what was necessary to protect her. But Pidge had just stared at him, shocked that he’d even tried to attack.

And so had Lance.

Maybe he should take Coran up on his offer. Trying to ignore it and hope it would go away is clearly not working out the way he’d hoped. Coran would know what to do. He hasn’t looked at Shiro like he’s a freak, hasn’t stared at him like there was something to be afraid of. Coran would help him.

Determined, Shiro dries himself off and gets changed. He can’t afford to risk attacking another teammate. He can’t go another night without sleep. With those thoughts in mind, he heads out to the bridge. In the time since coming back to the ship, he still hasn’t explored much. He doesn’t know where else to find him.

His enhanced hearing picks up the sounds before he gets there, and Shiro slows down. As he gets closer, he can tell it’s an argument. A loud, heated one at that.

“Look, it’s obvious he’s brainwashed” – Keith – “We need to get him in a cryopod until we can figure out what’s happening.”

Shiro catches an annoyed growl, Keith again, before Lance speaks up. “He’s just confused, Keith. He needs help, not us attacking him.”

“I’m telling you, that’s _not Shiro_. He’s _brainwashed_.”

“Quiznak, Keith!” Lance explodes. “It’s not his fault he hasn’t been sleeping! Of course he snapped!”

“You just don’t _want_ something to be wrong!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know exactly what it means!”

“You’re just jealous he’s spending more time with me than you!”

“It’s not _real_ , Lance! You know it’s not real!”

Silence follows the outburst. Shiro holds his breath, waiting.

“Fuck you.” Lance says it so softly, Shiro’s almost sure he heard wrong. He doesn’t have any time to think about it, though, because the next thing he knows, the door is being thrown open. He jumps to the side to avoid getting hit, but Lance doesn’t notice. He storms past Shiro without looking his way, and the doors slide shut behind him.

He slinks back to his room before anyone else can follow Lance.

The thing is…Keith is right. He’s been back for weeks now, but he still can’t remember anything past what Black prompts him to. There are all sorts of inside jokes and stories that go right over his head. He can smile and nod as much as he wants, but the truth is in front of them all: he doesn’t belong here.

He wants to sleep, wants to get rest so he doesn’t risk having another hallucination. But at the same time, he doesn’t want the nightmares. The result is him staring up at the ceiling, doing absolutely nothing.

With a growl, he gets out of bed. He hadn’t even changed into sleeping clothes, wasn’t even under the covers. So he may as well go for a walk.

He doesn’t pretend he’s going anywhere else.

Shiro knows he shouldn’t do it, shouldn’t take a single step forward. But he does. He walks all the way to where Lance is seated and drops down beside him. If Lance is surprised, his face doesn’t show it at all.

“Hey,” he starts.

Lance doesn’t even look over at him. “Hey.”

“Couldn’t sleep?”

“Not really.”

He doesn’t want to tell Lance, doesn’t want anyone on the team to see how broken he is. Especially not Lance. Not the one who’s been treating him as if there’s nothing wrong. The only one who doesn’t look at him like he’s crazy.

But something’s wrong with him. He can’t keep pretending – not when it’s putting the team in danger.

“I need to talk to you about something.”

Lance’s shoulders droop. “Okay,” he mumbles.

“I…heard you all talking.” Lance buries his face in his arms. “Earlier on the bridge.” When Lance doesn’t say anything, Shiro continues. “I understand, you know. Their point of view. I think…I think there’s something wrong with me.”

Lance’s head jerks up. He looks over at Shiro, wide eyed. “Hold up. You’re talking about the brainwashing thing?”

“What else would I be talking about?”

Lance averts his eyes. “Nothing,” he says too fast. “So you think you’re brainwashed?”

“I…don’t really know. I…” He hesitates, but it’s almost too late now. He’d meant to talk to Coran, but ended up here instead. “I’ve been having nightmares.”

“About the arena?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes it’s about being experimented on, but I can’t remember much from there. It’s more…darkness and…I don’t know. I don’t really understand it.” His head is pounding, the way it does when he thinks about his memories too hard. He buries his face in his hand, willing the headache, the nausea away. Forcing himself to push through. “I think the only way to get answers is to go to where they did this.”

“Do you know where it is?”

He shakes his head, pulling out a few strands of hair as they snag on his arm. “No. I think it’s buried in my subconscious.”

“But deep down?” Lance leans in, looking strangely encouraged, despite Shiro’s words.

“I think so. But every time I try to focus on it, my head pounds and I can’t think.”

Lance stands up, reaching his hand out to Shiro. “Come on. I have an idea.”

The team isn’t pleased to be woken in the middle of the night, especially when they discover the alarm wasn’t triggered by Allura. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Keith growls when he walks in.

“Calm down, Keith,” Allura tells him, voice not matching her words. “I’m sure Lance had a _very good reason_ for waking us in the middle of the night.” She glares straight at Lance as she speaks, threat clear in everything from her stance to the tone of her voice.

“I do. I really do.” Lance, at least, doesn’t seem disturbed – or even surprised – at the hostile reception. “Look, so we all know Shiro’s been acting weird, right?”

“Yes.”

“Of course.”

“Obviously.”

“As weird as a Blipyde in a Qinspoe farm.”

Shiro winces at the lightning fast responses from everyone except Keith. And right in front of him too.

Lance grimaces, shooting him an apologetic glace. “Right. So anyway, I think the Galra might have scrambled his mind so that if he escaped he couldn’t get back to where they are.” He stands there triumphantly, but no one – not even Shiro – appears to give the reaction he’s looking for. He lets out an irritated groan. “Ugh. What I’m saying is: I think Shiro _knows_ where he was kept. And if we put him in one of those memory-extractor-pod things, we can get the location from his mind!”

“I dunno, Lance. That didn’t really work all that well before,” Hunk reasons, side-eyeing Shiro, Shiro’s not sure what he’s talking about, but Pidge hums an agreement.

“Besides,” Pidge remarks, stepping forward and grabbing Shiro’s arm, hoisting it up in the air, “last time Shiro needed to get somewhere, the Blade of Marmora embedded coordinates in his arm. It’s possible someone did that again.”

“I agree with Number Five. If there are coordinates anywhere, they’d be in the arm. Any memories Shiro might have of his capture will be marred, no matter what we do. It’s highly unlikely his mind could provide coordinates the princess could jump to.”

Keith growls, arms crossed defensively over his chest. “This is a bad idea.”

“Why? Have a better one?” Lance snaps at him.

“Cadets,” Shiro snaps at the same time Allura snaps, “Paladins.”

Keith and Lance blink, both looking over at Shiro. He could swear he sees a smile on Lance’s face. Before he can be too distracted by the thought, he turns his attention to Allura. “Princess, what do you think we should do?”

Allura hesitates. “I agree with Hunk. Even without a corrupted crystal, it’s risky.”

“Risky how? He’s not going to corrupt the castle. Didn’t Coran re-program them to not do that?”

“The danger is more to Shiro himself. These memory pods were made to extract thoughts from a willing participant.”

“Shiro is a willing participant!” Lance exclaims, looking to him. “Right, Shiro?”

“As the princess says,” Coran jumps in before he can do more than nod in agreement, “there is a risk. Shiro may be willing, but whatever the Galra did to his mind might _not_ be willing. In other words, the risk is to Shiro himself.”

“Oh.” Lance’s eyes open impossibly wide. Shiro can see the hope dying in them, and he won’t – he can’t – watch it disappear. “Right. Never mind then, we shouldn’t.”

“I want to try,” Shiro interjects. “But I’ll start with the arm first, just in case.” He turns to Lance as he says it, reassuring him with a glance.

To his surprise, it doesn’t really work. Lance doesn’t look reassured at all. Quite the opposite actually. He frowns, shoots a look over at Keith, and turns away. Shiro doesn’t have a chance to process this new development, though, because Pidge is immediately there, chattering excitedly. “I need you to take a seat and hold out your arm for me.”

He zones out while Pidge and Hunk talk excitedly over him, catching a few words that make no sense to him – space taco? – thinking more about what could be in his arm, if anything. His memories of his time on the team are hazy at best, only serving to bring about a large headache when his mind wanders to them.

When he glances over at Keith, the red paladin’s staring at him as if trying to figure him out. He sets his jaw when he notices Shiro watching and looks away. Keith’s always been a bit of a conspiracy theorist, and Shiro realizes how strange it is that they happened upon him. It seems like a setup, but he doesn’t _know_ what it is. That’s why they’re checking his arm.

Lance is nowhere to be found.

Shiro ignores the way his chest tightens at being left alone by the other, instead turning his focus back to Pidge. She’s hunched over the display, watching characters Shiro doesn’t recognize whizz past, too fast for him to follow. Hunk is next to him, slowly nodding off. Shiro feels the same, his eyelids going heavy. It could take a while for them to find anything.

“What’s that?” Allura’s voice sounds from right above his head, startling him out of the half asleep state he’d fallen into. Next to him, Hunk starts snoring.

Pidge hums. “Not sure. It looks like some kind of repeating code, but it’s all gibberish to me…”

“Let me take a look.” Coran is there immediately, hovering over Pidge. The two geniuses talk over his head, chattering about things that Shiro will never hope to understand in a million years. It’s like being back on the Kerberos mission all over again – Matt and Sam talking excitedly about what they hoped to find buried in the moon’s ice.

“Shiro.” The sound of his name jerks him awake again. All three of them are watching him, and Shiro gets the distinct impression they’d said his name more than once.

He winces. “Sorry. I haven’t been sleeping well lately…”

“What were you thinking about?” Pidge asks, looking serious.

“Uh…your brother, actually.” Pidge blinks at that. “I was thinking about how similar this was to the Kerberos mission.” Even saying the words right now is enough to bring a dull throb against his skull. He winces again.

“Shiro,” Allura asks softly, “does your head hurt, thinking about it now?”

He nods.

The three of them exchange a look. “But it didn’t before?” Coran presses. Shiro must look confused, because Coran clarifies: “when you were sleeping?”

“Oh.” Shiro frowns. “I guess not.”

“Hmm…” Coran turns back to Pidge. “This is different than the time Ulaz planted those coordinates.”

“I think Lance might’ve had a point, but maybe if we combine the two…”

“I’ll need to recalibrate the chamber. Give me a tick.” Coran agrees. He turns and shakes Hunk awake. “Come on, Number Two. I’ll need your help with this.” Hunk looks around, confusion marring his features but follows Coran out the door mumbling something.

The empty space next to Shiro is immediately filled by Keith. He still has that glare – borderline pout – pasted on his face. “What are you doing?” He demands, directing his words to Pidge.

“We need to get Shiro in one of those pods and then connect to his arm.”

“Why?” Keith asks before Shiro can.

Pidge looks over at them, adjusting her glasses. “Because. When Shiro thought about Kerberos, the gibberish in his arm started to make sense.”

“Why do you think it’s in my arm?” Shiro blurts finally, the question clawing its way out of his throat.

Keith turns to look at him, wary distrust in his eyes again. “Do you even remember who Ulaz is?”

Ulaz. The way Keith says his name, the way the team all look at him, makes Shiro think he _should_. But he doesn’t. He wracks his brain, hoping to learn otherwise, but all it succeeds in doing is make his head pound.

“Don’t make him do that,” Pidge snaps. “It’s messing up the data.”

To Keith’s credit, he looks properly cowed. “What do you want me to do then?”

“Help me carry this computer.” Pidge unplugs the cord from Shiro’s arm and stands, getting out of the way so Keith can reach over and grab the computer she’d been working on. The red paladin grunts when he lifts it. “Follow me,” Pidge instructs. “Both of you.”

Shiro and Keith follow them silently down the halls. They walk down halls he’s only visited late at night, places they’ve never gone together as a team before. Something nags at him when they enter a room filled with empty crypods. As usual, he can’t manage to think past the headache forming at the sight.

Coran and Hunk are bent over an open one, messing with the controls. “I think we might have gotten this working,” Hunk greets them, pushing his glasses up his forehead. “Won’t know ‘til we try it.”

“Should be easy as –“

“You’re just going to stick him in there?” Keith, who up until this point had been glaring at and distrusting Shiro, jumps to his defense. “You don’t know what it’ll do to his head. What if –“

“Keith,” Allura interrupts. “This is Shiro’s choice.”

As one all of them look to Shiro. He tries to ignore the nagging thought that Lance isn’t here to help. “I want to know if there’s something wrong with me,” Shiro says finally.

With their help he gets into the pod, holding his arm in such a way that Pidge can worm the cord through the seal and plug it in. “All you need to do is fall asleep,” she assures him. “We’ll lead your thoughts in the way they need to be led.”

Blackness consumes him. He knows he’s not fully asleep, only partly there as images fly past his mind. He’s prompted a few times to follow the threads of memory, getting deeper into the images before being whisked away again.

Flashes of his nightmares fly by, but he feels strangely detached from them. Especially since the images don’t cling for too long. Time is nothing more than an arbitrary concept, as is his sense of self. He feels himself sinking deeper and deeper into the darkness, losing his grip on reality.

The black fades to pink, liquid filling his universe starting from his feet and moving upwards. He sucks in a breath and then –

His eyes open, and he lurches forward into a forgiving wall. He looks around, disoriented again until he remembers who he is. Remembers _where_ he is. Shiro pushes himself off Hunk, standing upright of his own free will.

Everyone but Lance is there, watching him warily. “What?” He asks, voice still dull, words still slurred. He feels like he’d just run a marathon and then been hit by a truck. The cryopods – memory pods, whatever they’re called – are not meant for humans. Nothing makes him more aware of that than now.

Pidge looks away from him first, something Shiro can’t read written in her eyes. “We found the location based on numbers embedded in your arm.”

“So it is what Lance thought,” Shiro breathes to himself.

Pidge shakes her head. “Not exactly. I don’t think it was planted intentionally this time.”

“Oh,” Shiro says because he doesn’t know what else to say. “So where is it?”

“We’re headed there now,” Allura interrupts, voice clipped. She nods to Coran before walking out of the room. Coran steps up to him and rests his hand on Shiro’s shoulder. He levels him with a look Shiro can’t read before tapping his shoulder and following Allura out.

Shiro’s head hurts.

Suddenly, Keith is there, poking him in the chest. “Come on, let’s get you somewhere you can lie down.” He has a frown on his face, and the look he’s giving Shiro is almost pity.

“I don’t think those pods were made for humans,” Hunk remarks, watching them skeptically.

Shiro has to agree. He doesn’t feel all that good.

He misses Pidge’s response as Keith leads the two of them out – Shiro now leaning heavily on him – and down the hall. “Why do I feel so sick?” He asks as they make their way to the area with the couch.

“I think those pods were only meant for Alteans.” Keith deposits him on the couch and turns to leave, but Shiro reaches out and grabs his sleeve, stopping him. “What’s wrong?”

“Don’t make me wait here.”

For his part, Keith at least doesn’t pretend they were all planning otherwise. “You don’t feel well.”

“Keith.”

Keith isn’t even looking at him, eyes darting around everywhere but near Shiro. “Besides, you don’t have all your memories back yet.”

“ _Keith_.”

Silence.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

But Keith still won’t look at him. “I think you should stay here,” he says eventually. Almost immediately, as if avoiding Shiro’s inevitable follow up question, Keith turns and walks out.

And isn’t that just perfect.

Shiro stays where he is, unable to tell what’s going on outside, not knowing even _where_ they’re headed. His head is pounding, pain worse than before. He supposes it makes sense – after all, it hurt whenever he actively tried to remember anything from before. Accessing his memories completely, even without his permission, of course would make it worse.

It’s a shame he still can’t remember anything.

Shiro’s not sure how long he’s stuck in there alone. He dozes a bit, nodding off to dull the pain. To his surprise, it actually helps. The pain eases, and his nausea disappears. Eventually, he’s actually able to sit normally.

That’s when there’s a knock at the door.

“Come in.” He knows it’s Keith, coming back to apologize – and hopefully explain – about earlier.

To his complete surprise, Lance is the one who walks in instead. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

Awkward is a feeling Shiro is going to have to get used to around Lance, it seems.

The blue paladin hovers inside the door before coming in all the way. He walks to the couch and sits on the completely opposite side of Shiro, not looking at him. It’s reminiscent of the earlier exchange with Keith.

Reminiscent of his moments with Lance on the observation deck.

“We’ve reached the system,” Lance tells him after a while.

Shiro jolts. “And they didn’t get me?”

Lance shrugs. “Yeah, well, you aren’t supposed to go.”

“And you?” He notices now that Lance is in full paladin gear, Bayard in hand.

“I’m not supposed to go either.”

Shiro frowns. “Why?”

“Well, for one thing, someone’s supposed to stay here and watch you. And for another, they think I might be too “emotionally compromised” for the mission.” Lance uses finger quotes around the words, clearly just as irritated as Shiro for being left out.

He knows that part of the reason the team doesn’t want him going is because of his memories. But he also knows there’s another reason. There has to be, otherwise Keith wouldn’t have dodged his questions, poorly though his dodging was. “What’re you gonna do if I make a break for it?”

A small smile, a genuine one, appears on Lance’s lips. “I suppose I’d have to chase you. Make sure you don’t get into trouble.”

Shiro smiles back at him. “It would be a shame, wouldn’t it?” He takes that as his invitation to leave and heads towards the door. He turns around once he’s outside, making sure Lance is following. “Not gonna walk with me?”

“Gotta make it look like I’m trying.”

“Who’s watching?”

Lance’s smile widens, bright and happy, and he falls into step alongside Shiro. This is better. He may not have any weapons – outside his hand – but he’ll be damned if he lets the rest of the team solve the mystery of who he is alone.

He’s glad he has someone on his side.

“Why don’t they want me coming?”

Lance’s smile drops. “Just your…uh…memories or whatever.” His pitch goes higher, his eyes dart around the hall.

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“Shiro, I…I don’t want to be the one to tell you, okay? And I think you’ll probably find out once we get there anyway.” He doesn’t push it any further.

They make it to the shuttle bay without being stopped. Lance heads towards a shuttle which already looks prepped and ready to go. “Were you expecting this?” Shiro asks.

“More like hoping.”

Hoping quite a lot considering that Shiro’s paladin armor and Bayard are on the seat when he gets there. He looks up and catches Lance’s eye for a second before the blue paladin blushes and averts his eyes. “I think our best chance is to wait until the lions have taken off and then follow them.”

“Okay.”

He pulls on his paladin gear, and they wait. They stay completely silent, listening to the rest of the team speak through the helmets, barely breathing for fear of being caught. They wait until after the castle stops, wait until after they hear all the lions deploy, and wait until they hear Keith report “we’re en route.”

That’s when they take off.

Lance removes his helmet, signaling for Shiro to do the same. They want to stay undercover, don’t want to alert their teammates. Lance at least has an idea on where they’re going, apparently having been allowed to be present during the briefing, even if he’s not allowed on the mission itself.

Shiro lets Lance pilot, mostly because his memories on how to do that are rudimentary at best. Partly because he likes how serious Lance looks when he’s focusing. He keeps his eyes on Lance so long he misses their take off, misses them fly towards the planet. Misses everything until a dark grey shape forms in the corner of his eye.

He’s shocked by what he sees.

“Is that…a dead planet?”

There’s no other word for it. The planet looks to have exploded into pieces, a sharp crack down the center of it. It’s achingly familiar in a way he can’t quite put his finger on, but at the same time he doesn’t want to know how he recognizes a dead planet.

“It’s Daibazaal,” Lance says, as if that explains everything.

Maybe before it would’ve. Instead, now, the name just causes an itch to appear in the back of Shiro’s mind. An itch that brings the throbbing headache back if he tries to scratch it. So instead, he asks: “Daibazaal?”

“The Galran home world,” Lance clarifies. “Zarkon’s home planet.”

Those spark memories, even if nothing else does. Hard not to when his most recent ones revolve around hearing about the ten thousand year war against the Galra. “This is the Galran home world?”

“Crazy, right? I thought Coran had seen a ghost when he realized where your arm was leading us.”

Shiro swallows down his next questions. Things will be answered when they land. Though, now that they’re here, he’s not sure it’s the best idea. He almost says that when Lance starts their descent. “Lance –“

“Relax. I see it.”

_It_ turns out to be a flying piece of debris. Lance maneuvers the shuttle, dropping them closer to the planet to avoid getting hit, and Shiro swallows his words. No answers without risks. No knowledge without consequences.

He doesn’t have to worry. Lance lands them expertly, touching the shuttle down at the feet of the yellow lion, just outside the particle barrier. “Looks like they already went inside.”

Shiro isn’t sure what Lance means by inside, but the two of them pull on their helmets again, quieting down as they open the shuttle and get out. There’s no atmosphere out here, Shiro can feel that. The only gravity that exists is weak, but Lance pushes a button on his armor, and his feet stick to the ground. Shiro copies him.

He follows Lance, assuming he knows where they’re going, across the barren wasteland. He wants to ask what ‘inside’ is, but he also wants to keep his presence hidden from the team. So instead he stays quiet as they walk.

Inside turns out to be a cave leading to what’s left of the core of the dead planet. There are no doors, though Shiro supposes they don’t need one. Who needs a door when the entire place looks like a super powered nuclear bomb hit it?

They descend in silence, Shiro’s mind flickering, until they hit a door at the bottom. It bears a symbol intimately familiar with him, and memories flash before his eyes. Liquid, cackling, his reflection all around, the witch.

“Oh…” He breathes, clutching his head.

It’s a mistake. Immediately, curses fill his helmet. And none of them are Lance or him.

“Are you shitting me, Lance? You brought Shiro?” Keith fumes.

“Lance…” Hunk sounds disappointed.

“Typical.” Pidge doesn’t sound surprised.

Lance ignores all of them, leaning in front of Shiro where he’s fallen to his knees. “Are you okay?”

“What’s wrong with him?” Keith’s voice demands.

“Shut up,” Lance shoots back, but there’s no bite in his words. “Shiro, hey, what happened?”

Shiro reaches out, grasping Lance’s offered hand. He can’t feel it through the gloves, but he bets it’s warm. Like the rest of Lance. “I remember this place,” he says.

Lance’s expression shudders, worry morphing to something Shiro can’t read. It settles into a carefully blank mask. “Can you walk?”

He stands, keeping his hold on Lance’s hand until the blue paladin drops it. “Yes.”

Hearing him seems to break Keith out of whatever was keeping him quiet. “That was a stupid ass move, Lance. What were you thinking? Didn’t we _tell you_ –“

“Jesus, Keith, have some compassion, will you? He’s still Shiro.” Lance points at the keypad by the door. “Put your robot hand on it,” he instructs. Shiro does as asked, and the door slides open, revealing an irritated Keith flanked by a nervous Hunk and an almost bored Pidge. Well, Pidge isn’t exactly bored. She’s working on a hand-held computer, not paying attention to the drama around them.

“Looks like we hit it at a good time. Sentries only,” she remarks, not looking up.

“This is too easy,” Hunk says, eyes darting around nervously. “I don’t like this.”

“You heard Allura,” Keith tells them both sharply, “we need to get in and get out. Find what we’re here for. Doesn’t matter how easy it is.”

“Really?” Pidge finally looks up, raised eyebrow visible through her visor. “Because that’s how we got into this mess in the first place.”

Whatever they’re talking about is beyond Shiro completely.

“Just shut up and take us there,” Lance argues. He’s not looking at Shiro, glaring at Keith instead, and Shiro’s not sure what to think of that. None of them are looking at him.

“Right,” Pidge says. “This way.”

They walk in a tense silence down the hall. Pidge leads with Keith hovering next to her, sword at the ready. Hunk follows, eyes and gun darting around at each turn. And Lance brings up the rear, behind Shiro. The sense that they all know something he doesn’t grows, but Lance had said he would find out soon enough. Patience yields focus, after all. He should be more patient.

“Here,” Pidge breaks the silence.

Shiro brings himself out of his head long enough to look around at the silent hallway around them. They’re in front of a door that looks no different than the other doors they’ve passed, leading Shiro to wonder what Pidge has on her computer that lead them here.

Patience yields focus.

“Shiro, are you sure you want to see this?” Lance asks softly, resting a hand on his shoulder.

“Yes.”

Keith grunts and places his hand on the keypad, opening the door.

It’s dark as they walk inside. Keith goes in first this time, sword ready, followed by Pidge and Hunk. Shiro follows in warily, and Lance finishes out the group. He’s almost relieved when the door close behind them, cutting off risk of them being seen by a passing sentry.

But then the lights turn on.

“Holy shit,” Pidge breathes.

Shiro blinks, eyes adjusting. When they do, he almost wishes he _had_ stayed in the castle. Because this is not what he signed up for. All around them are tubes, some filled with pink liquid, others with gold. But all of them have the same thing inside them. Him.

He’s inside all the tubes.

Shiro doesn’t realize he’s dropped his Bayard until it falls with a clatter. Lance’s hand almost immediately reappears on his shoulder, but Shiro just wants to vomit. All the side looks, not wanting him to come, the memory loss, all of it. Everything makes sense now.

“Shiro,” Lance murmurs, “hey, it’s okay –“

“I’m not Shiro,” he replies. He aches, saying that.

“Hey.” Two hands cup his helmet, and he looks down to meet that impossibly blue gaze. “You’re still Shiro to me.”

“Keith, you need to see this.” Pidge’s voice sounds odd in his ears, strangely detached, but he ignores it. Keith can deal with whatever it is.

“Shiro!”

That jolts him out of his trance. Lance’s hands drop off the helmet, and he turns away, rifle at the ready. “What’s wrong?” The paladin’s voice is frayed, almost panicked.

“We found him.”

Immediately, they both go running.

They reach the center of the room, and there is the largest tube of all. There are tubes hooked to it, connecting to all the other ones, and inside is a strange purple glowing liquid, different than the rest. But what they really notice is the person inside. It’s him – Shiro.

But it’s the real Shiro.

He knows, deep in his bones that this one is the original. The original’s hair is completely black, overgrown from the undercut he remembers getting before the Kerberos mission, dropping down to his shoulders. The same length his own is. His face is unmarked, eyes closed as he floats almost peacefully.

But there’s a stub where his right arm should be.

“We need to get him out of there.” Keith is looking around frantically. “Can anyone read Galra?”

As if in a trance, he steps forward to the console. He places his hand on the console, using his other one to click a few buttons, purely from memory.

The liquid drains.

“What did you do?” Keith shouts, launching at him. He doesn’t fight back, lets Keith take him down to the ground, hold a blade to his throat. Because he’s a faker. A liar.

A clone.

“Keith! Let him go!”

There’s a struggle coming from somewhere above him, but he keeps his eye on Keith’s furious glare until the moment it’s dragged away. Until the moment they hear “Hello? Where am I?”

The real Shiro.

“Hey,” Lance’s face appears in front of him again, blurred by something. He realizes there were tears gathering in his eyes. “Come on. We need to get out of here.”

He accepts it, numb.

“Hunk, I need some help over here,” Pidge’s voice echoes in the helmet. “I think I found our Shiro too.”

Our Shiro. The name he’ll never have. He’ll never be their Shiro. Never have the memories they have.

“What do we do with the other ones?”

At that, he looks around himself. His hand is still grasping Lance’s, even as he lies prone on the ground. The other ones don’t look fully formed, he can tell now that they’re closer. Pieces are missing, the scars are wrong, and some look more like lumps of flesh than people. He wants to vomit again.

“Shiro,” Lance’s voice brings him back. He’s not Shiro, but he can’t open his mouth to remind Lance of that. “We really need to get out of here.”

Why do they want to take him back? They should leave him here with these piles of flesh. Launch a super powered nuke at the place and blow it off the map.

“Leave me here,” he says finally.

Lance’s hand tightens around his wrist. “Don’t you dare. Get your ass up so we can get out before the sentries find us.”

It’s at that moment he realizes the others aren’t here anymore. Their voices still sound through his helmet occasionally, but they’re nowhere to be seen. The only one left is Lance.

“Lance –“

“Don’t. We can talk about this later on the ship.”

If he doesn’t go, Lance won’t go either. He knows that. And Lance could be the one to end up in the tube in the middle. He could be the one with thousands of clones no doubt programmed to destroy the team. Find himself in the same situation the real Shiro is in now.

That’s the only thing that makes him heave himself up.

They run back to the shuttle this time, nothing but huffs of breath sounding in their helmets. He knows they’re trying to get out of there before the witch comes back, but there’s no sign of anyone in the place. It’s creepy. Almost terrifying.

As if they were supposed to find it.

Lance shoves him into the shuttle, jumping in after him, and they take off long after the lions have already left. No one tries to shoot them down as they head back towards the castle, but the knowledge that he’s going to have to face two other versions of himself – versions who know the team better than he ever will, versions who never tried to kill Pidge because of a hallucination – forces a shiver down his spine.

They land without issue, and he feels the momentum of the castle as it takes off to warp. But still, he doesn’t get out of the shuttle.

“Shiro.” Lance has his helmet off as he speaks, and he takes his cue from that, removing his own. “Listen to me.”

“I’m not Shiro.”

“I don’t care.” Lance set his jaw, stubborn. “I don’t care that you’re a Galran clone. That you were probably sent to us to destroy us or something. I think we can fix this and…look that’s not the point. The point is, I still care. About you.”

He blinks slowly. “You care about me?”

“Yes. Of course I do. Don’t get me wrong, I’m super happy we figured this out and saved the real Shiro…and our Shiro too, who is also apparently _also_ a clone…but that doesn’t make me care about _you_ any less, okay?”

He wants to believe it. Really, he does. So he drops his head to Lance’s shoulder, not letting him move away. He doesn’t know how to convey his feelings. How to tell Lance that that means everything right now. In this moment, he doesn’t even know his own identity, doesn’t know where he belongs. Doesn’t know how or when he’s programmed to snap and kill them. So instead he says:

“Don’t change your mind.”

And Lance, wonderful perfect Lance, who is there for him despite his real teammate being saved, despite the real Shiro lying somewhere, probably just as confused as he was when he’d arrived, is here. Sitting with him.

“I promise I won’t.”

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [Tumblr](https://rinthegreat.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/rinthegreat_ao3) to see what I'm up to and how to support me!
> 
> [Follow Queenie](http://queenmogar117.tumblr.com/) and [reblog their art](http://queenmogar117.tumblr.com/post/167324838423/art-for-rinthegreats-fic-nightmares-and)  
> [Follow Mike](http://mike-a-liscious.tumblr.com/) and [reblog their art](http://mike-a-liscious.tumblr.com/post/167025220385/here-are-my-pieces-for-the-shiro-big-bang)  
> [Follow GonProHunter](http://gonprohunter.tumblr.com/) and [reblog their art](http://gonprohunter.tumblr.com/post/167326640557/art-for-rinthegreats-fic-nightmares-and-daydreams%22)
> 
>  
> 
> If you like this please head over to thislittlekumquat's [Twitter](https://twitter.com/waffledemon) and send her a huge thank you for betaing this! She did this _and_ my other big bang despite all the crap in her life and that's what I'm thankful for this year.
> 
> And finally, before anyone asks: I do not plan on continuing this story. However, if you would like to do so in any way (AMV, fic, comic, etc) I will read/look at/watch it and promote it here! :)


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